"Giorgione is regarded as a unique figure in the history of art: almost no other Western painter has left so few secure works and enjoyed such fame..." Sylvia Ferino-Pagden.

My website, MyGiorgione, now includes my interpretations of Giorgione's "Tempest" as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt"; his "Three Ages of Man" as "The Encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man"; Titian's, "Sacred and Profane Love" as "The Conversion of Mary Magdalen"; and Titian's "Pastoral Concert" as his "Homage to Giorgione".

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Albrecht Durer traveled to Venice in the latter half
of 1505 and stayed until early in 1507. It seems that he had planned this
journey for a while but an outbreak of plague in Nuremburg apparently hastened
his departure. Erwin Panofsky devoted a whole chapter to the Venetian sojourn in
his magisterial study, “The Life and Art of Albrecht Durer.” Panofsky entitled
the chapter, ‘The Second Trip to Italy and the Culmination of Painting,
1505-1510/11.’***

Panofsky points out that Durer had achieved a high
degree of fame even before this visit to Venice. In Panofsky’s words,

The young beginner who had visited Venice eleven
years before was now a world-renowned master whose inventions were copied and
imitated everywhere. Also, he was no longer poor….Thus he did not walk about
the city as an unknown and insignificant tourist but plunged into its colorful
and stimulating life as a distinguished guest. He became acquainted with
‘intelligent scholars, good lute-players, flutists, connoisseurs of painting and
many noble minds’ who honored and befriended him. [107-8]

Despite his mastery in wood-cut and engraving, Durer
turned exclusively to oil painting while in Venice. Panofsky indicates that
Venice and its painters had a great impact on the German master. From his
correspondence we know that Durer regarded the aged Giovanni Bellini as still
the greatest of painters, but in a letter dated February 7, 1506, Durer
mentioned that he had also found “many painters much superior to Jacopo de’
Barbari,” an artist already well-known to Durer before the Italian trip.

Panofsky indicates that Durer turned to painting to
show that he could work with color as well as any Venetian, but also because of
the desires of his patrons in Venice. Almost immediately on his arrival Durer
was welcomed by the prosperous German merchant community. It would appear that
connections in Nuremberg and Augsburg had paved the way for him and even
arranged a lucrative commission to paint an altarpiece for S. Bartolommeo, the
German church in Venice. In a letter to a friend about the altarpiece, usually
called the “Feast of the Rose Garlands,” Durer claimed that the commission was
an effective way to “silence those who said I was good as an engraver but did
not know how to handle the colors in painting.” [109-110]

On the completion of the “Feast of the Rose Gardens”
Durer, himself, bragged, “I herewith announce that there is no better image of
the Virgin in the country.” This claim might be exaggerated but the painting
did gain much acclaim.

Old Giovanni Bellini…visited his studio and
expressed the wish to acquire one of his paintings…When the “Feast of the Rose Garlands” was
completed it was admired by the whole Venetian aristocracy, including the Doge
and the Patriarch, and finally even by Durer’s colleagues….” [109]

Panofsky agrees with this contemporary evaluation
despite the very poor condition of the painting today. “In one propitious
moment he succeeded in synthesizing the force and accuracy of his design with
the rich glow of Venetian color.” Panofsky acknowledges Durer’s debt to Bellini

The balanced grandeur of this composition would not
have been attainable to Durer without the study and complete understanding of
the style of Giovanni Bellini whom he so frankly admired…(112)

The painting was inspired by the increasingly
popular devotion to the rosary, especially among the Dominican friars, whose
founder was considered to have been the creator of the devotion. The rose
garlands in the painting actually represent the decades of the rosary, and in
Panofsky’s opinion the painting should actually be titled, “the Brotherhood of
the Rosary.”

While working on the altarpiece for S. Bartolommeo,
Durer also completed two smaller paintings of sacred subjects. The first was
the so-called “Madonna of the Siskin”, now in the Staatliche Museum in
Berlin.The second was a version
of “Christ Among the Doctors” that is now in theThyssen Bornemisza collection in Madrid.

The “Madonna of the Siskin” derives its popular name
from the bird on the arm of the infant Jesus. However, it is actually a
representation of the meeting of the young John the Baptist with the Holy
Family on their return from the sojourn in Egypt. Panofsky notes that the young
Baptist is the most significant iconographical feature in the painting.

The inclusion of this figure…was an utter novelty in
Northern art which…knew only the triad of the Holy Family and the complete
circle of the Holy Kinship, but not the “Virgin with the Infant Jesus and the
Little St. John.” This theme was Central Italian rather than Venetian, but that
compositions not unlike Durer’s…existed in Venice and the “Terra Firma” is
demonstrated… [113]

In Panofsky’s opinion, Durer took this traditional
subject to a new level. He
“surpassed this and similar prototypes by enlivening the entire composition and
by endowing the little St. John with a Leonardesque or even Raphaelesque
vitality which had been foreign to the earlier Venetian and Venetianizing
schools.”... [114]

While the Madonna of the Rose Garlands took months
to complete, it would appear that “Christ among the Doctors”, the final
painting in the Venetian triad, was done in a matter of days. Yet, Durer
considered this painting as “something new and extraordinary” and Panofsky
concurs.

The emphasis on manual gesticulation, and even the
specific gesture of arguing by counting fingers is unquestionably Italian, as
is also the compositional form as a whole. The idea of presenting a dramatic
incident by half-length figures so that the whole effect is concentrated on the
expressive quality of hands and faces had been sanctioned by Mantegna…and had
gained favor in all the North Italian schools, particularly in Venice and
Milan. [114]

Panofsky’s description of this painting reminds me
of the so-called “Three Ages of Man” usually attributed to Giorgione. I have
interpreted that painting as a dramatic incident also from the life of Christ:
the encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man. Giorgione, who was working in
Venice at the same time as Durer, also used the expressive hands and faces of
half-length figures to create an effect. In both paintings the half-length
treatment provides a kind of close-up or zoom effect.

Giorgione: "Three Ages of Man"
Pitti Palace

In the year after Durer left Venice, Giorgione was given the commission
to fresco the exterior walls of the newly rebuilt Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the
center of German community in Venice. Over the years scholars have tried to
find some northern influence on Giorgione’s work, but Panofsky never mentions Giorgione. Instead, he argues that
Durer was greatly influenced by what he saw in Venice. After his return to
Germany, Durer eventually gave up painting and went back to his wood cuts and
engravings. But they would never be the same. His stay in Venice had brought
his work to an even greater level.

I like to think of him and Giorgione both trying to satisfy the demands of their patrons for sacred subjects while at the same time working to a make their work exceptional and innovative.

###

***Erwin
Panofsky: The Life and Art of Albrecht Durer, Princeton, 1955. Page citations are in brackets.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

I was really looking forward to attending the annual meeting of the
Renaissance Society of America that was held this year in New York City from
March 27 to 29. This conference was the sixtieth in the RSAs history and
because of the location turned out to be the largest in the Society’s history.
The program book came to over 800 pages although an app was available for easy
reference.

I was especially interested because the conference program showed a
heavy emphasis on the art of the Venetian Renaissance. On Friday alone there
were four consecutive sessions under the title, “Art, Architecture, and the
Artist in Renaissance Venice.” In addition there was an early morning
roundtable discussion entitled, “Early Modern Venetian Studies in the
Twenty-First Century.”

I was only able to attend on Friday but looked forward to hearing from
a mixture of leading scholars in the field and younger scholars anxious to establish
their credentials. Before going any further I have to say that the panels I
attended turned out to be disappointing for a variety of reasons that I will
discuss below.

First, let me discuss the roundtable mentioned above. The abstract
indicated that “this panel will bring together an international,
interdisciplinary group of top scholars working in Venetian studies today to
examine the current state of the field and to look forward to future directions
of research.” There was indeed a distinguished group of professors from various
distinguished universities who in turn briefly discussed their own work but in
no way indicated any future directions in the field of Venetian studies.

One significant omission was the lack of any discussion of the role of
the Internet. In his introduction the chairman of the panel spoke at length
about a new publication of material from Venetian archives. Apparently, the
publisher has printed less than a hundred copies of what sounded like a huge
tome. Depending on demand a less expensive paperback version might be available
in a few years.

Is this where Renaissance studies are going? Why shouldn’t this book be
instantly and inexpensively available to a much wider audience? Medieval
manuscripts used to be available only to a few until the appearance of moveable
type. Why did these scholars fail to discuss the Internet and its uses in the
twenty first century?

In the question period one member of the audience asked if Venetian
studies might go into decline in this century after a meteoric rise in the past
century. This question finally elicited a spirited if inconclusive discussion
among the panel. Ironically, the discussion came to an end after an Italian
scholar in the audience lamented the decline of modern Venice. Actually, he
claimed that Venice was dying, not so much because of the threatening waters
but from contemporary mis-management and corruption. It was a somber end to the
roundtable.

I will only say a few words about the next two panels I attended, both
under the title, “Art. Architecture, and the Artist in Renaissance Venice.”
First, the future of Venetian studies would appear to include an excessive
interest in funerary tombs and monuments. It is as if scholars, both old and
new, believe that all that needs to be said about the great masterworks of the
Venetian Renaissance has been said. Now they will work in fallow fields of
little artistic value.

Second, one of the speakers gave an example of how not to present a
paper at a conference. She did choose a large subject and even warned that she
might have too much material. Participants are limited to a twenty-minute
presentation and usually you can only read ten pages in that time. So one would
expect that that the paper be edited carefully and discussion limited to a few
examples. Instead, the professor just chose to read her entire paper at
breakneck speed. What could she have been thinking of?

Finally, my day ended with another roundtable, a kind of summing up of
the Art and Architecture series. This roundtable included a number of other
luminaries. The room was packed with expectant listeners. The tone, however,
was set by one of the three chairpersons who introduced each of the eight
participants at length. Her introduction took almost 20 minutes of the allotted
90. I frankly can’t remember anything that was said by any of the participants. It was an exercise in non-controversy.

I do remember that they were all women, a fact pointed out by someone
in the audience during the question period. Most of the people in the room were
also women. Art History has become a province for women. This issue was never
raised at the conference. What is the special appeal of Venice and its art to
women? Why are men not interested? Maybe these questions could be addressed at
a future conference.